


cake

by trulyfine (ssstrychnine)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, a wedding of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 08:41:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10567695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/trulyfine
Summary: kyungsoo bakes a cake





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zannen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zannen/gifts).



Baekhyun asks Kyungsoo to get an apartment with him on an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday morning. They have sunshine and breakfast and Baekhyun’s mouth is still swollen with sleep and Kyungsoo’s hair is still wild from his pillow.

   
“Minseok-hyung told me a one bedroom apartment opened in his building,” says Baekhyun, like he’s talking about the weather. “We should get it.”

   
“Alright,” says Kyungsoo, tired and happy and stunned, and it’s decided.

   
Their house warming is quiet, Chanyeol with a guitar and Minseok with expensive alcohol and Yixing with a badly wrapped, extremely ugly lamp that they’ll keep in the back of the closet. Baekhyun drinks too much and Kyungsoo drinks more and they’re left alone by midnight, sitting together on the floor surrounded by empty glasses and half-empty boxes.

   
Baekhyun lies back, hair a halo of dirty gold around his head.

   
“It should be a wedding next,” he says, decisive even though he’s slurring his words.

   
“What?” Kyungsoo pokes at the top button of his shirt, unbuttons it, laughs when Baekhyun slaps his hand away.

   
“Like, after living together for a bit, you get married.”

   
“Do you?” he hums thoughtfully, likes back too, curls up on his side next to Baekhyun, so he can see his face better. “We can’t though.”

   
“I know, but did you ever think about getting married? Like when you were a kid, the whole thing, always a Western wedding like on TV. I guess everyone has them now but when we were young it was so exciting to think about the suit and the cake and-”

   
“And the girl in a white dress.”

   
“Maybe,” Baekhyun chews on his lower lip, “sometimes. I didn’t really think about the person, just the party.”

   
Kyungsoo laughs, “of course, your spouse is secondary, right?”

   
“It would’ve been whoever I had a crush on at school, I guess, or whatever celebrity I liked.”

   
“I never really thought about it,” Kyungsoo wriggles a little closer, curls his fingers under the collar of Baekhyun’s shirt, knuckles resting under the ridge of his collarbone. “Is that what you want?”

   
“I don’t know, it’s just a... it’s just a kid thing,” says Baekhyun, his breath tickling Kyungsoo’s forehead. “It doesn’t matter.”

   
They haul themselves up off the floor a little while later and go to bed. Baekhyun falls asleep immediately, curled up on his side, snoring softly, mouth wet against Kyungsoo’s neck. He stays awake a little longer, because of the alcohol mostly, the way it sends him into his thoughts. Baekhyun has wedding dreams. A child’s wedding dreams, but still. Kyungsoo has never really considered it an option. It’s not legal, for one thing, but more than that, rings and contracts and promises, they’re all a little meaningless to him. He’s happy to give Baekhyun all of himself, without all that. He sighs and Baekhyun mumbles wordlessly against his throat. Kyungsoo curls around him, pulls him closer, falls asleep.

   
Baekhyun doesn’t mention weddings again and Kyungsoo doesn’t ask him. There are other things to concentrate on, making the new apartment feel like theirs, Chanyeol’s new puppy, killing him slowly though he’s happy to let it, Jongdae’s new song, the one he wants Baekhyun to sing with him. It hovers at the back of Kyungsoo’s mind though, and he worries over it like a tongue over a rough tooth.

   
His solution is cake. They can’t have a wedding, not truly, but Kyungsoo can bake well enough. He decides immediately that it’s not going to be a wedding cake, no fondant or roses or a little bride and groom on the top, because he thinks they’re ugly and fussy and he knows that Baekhyun won’t really mind. He’ll make fresh cream cake, because it’s what he knows, because it’s the cake everyone gets for special occasions, it doesn’t matter that he’s never made it himself before. Sponge and fresh fruit and cream. Strawberries and peaches.

   
So on a Saturday, he gets Chanyeol to invite Baekhyun over for gaming or puppies or screaming or whatever it is they do together, and he sets himself up in the kitchen. He’s cobbled a recipe together from a million different ones he’s found online and from a lot of time spent staring at the cakes in bakeries, eating some of them, and it’s not that difficult, just kind of fiddly. A billion eggs, two cakes sandwiched together, whipped cream, thick and sweet, and he’s a little worried about the decorating bit but he thinks if he keeps it simple it’ll be okay. He hopes Baekhyun will like it. He hopes... he hopes it means something to him.

   
It takes a long time, mixing and then baking and then cooling it down enough that he can spread the whipped cream, in between the layers and across the top and down the sides, bright white. Strawberries sandwiched in the middle too, bleeding juice, turning the cream pink in places. He texts Chanyeol, tells him to send Baekhyun home, arranges the fruit on the top, not elegant but pretty enough, he thinks, rings of gold and red. He shakes the confectioner’s sugar from his apron, gets changed. He’s strangely nervous suddenly. It’s just a cake, not even dinner with it, not even a party, definitely not a wedding, but he’s worried he’s miscalculated something. What if Baekhyun laughs?

   
He doesn’t do anything dramatic, doesn’t dim the lights or light candles or anything like that, he’s too awkward to be standing in a suit, waiting for Baekhyun to open the door. He might have bought flowers, but it hadn’t occurred to him and now it’s too late. He might have bough a ring. It doesn’t matter. He has a cake, sitting prettily on a cake stand, and he has love, quite a lot of it really.

   
Baekhyun opens the front door and Kyungsoo’s stomach drops. He dusts his hands together, shifts from foot to foot. Baekhyun comes into the kitchen and for a moment he looks confused, but then he smiles, big and bright and perfect.

   
“You made a cake!” he says, happily, crossing over to Kyungsoo, resting his hands on his chest, kissing him, sweet and gentle. “How did you know I wanted sweets?”

   
“It’s not... you wanted a wedding and we can’t get married, but I know how to bake so,” he shrugs, awkward under Baekhyun’s hands. Baekhyun pulls away to stare at him. “I mean, we can have a party with everyone, a... a ceremony, if you want, even if it can’t be legal, but I wanted... I don’t know. I made a cake.”

   
“This is a wedding cake?” Baekhyun turns away from him to look at the cake. He sounds stunned. Kyungsoo wrings his hands, feeling suddenly silly. This is why he doesn’t do grand romantic gestures, they’re always so embarrassing.

   
“It’s a cream cake,” he says. “You should have a piece.”

   
“No,” says Baekhyun firmly, turning back. His expression is set, serious.  
  


"Oh, right, well-”  
 

“We have to cut it together, like a real wedding.”  
 

Kyungsoo gets the knife and they hold it together and Baekhyun is smiling again, his whole face lit up, and their thumbs cross over one another and their fingers rest parallel along the blade and they cut a piece, too big for either of them to eat alone but perfect for them both, together. Kyungsoo’s cheeks hurt from smiling and it’s such a silly thing, a cake, their hands, but he loves Baekhyun so much and he’s glad for any silly thing they do together. They lift the piece of cake away from the rest, put it on one of the pretty, hand-painted plates that Baekhyun’s mother gives them every time they go to visit.  
 

“I know this bit,” says Kyungsoo, and he laughs, breaks off a piece of cake with his hand, sponge and cream and fruit, and squashes it against Baekhyun’s mouth. Baekhyun shrieks and pulls away but Kyungsoo chases him and then there’s cream on his cheeks, his nose, in his hair, and he’s scowling like an angry puppy, but he still licks Kyungsoo’s fingers clean.  
  


“S’good,” he mumbles, wiping his face with the back of his hand, licking that too. “Better than the shop.”  
 

“Obviously.”  
  


“C’mere,” he pulls on Kyungsoo’s wrist and he’s definitely expecting it when Baekhyun retaliates, jams half a piece of cake into his cheek, his nose, missing his mouth completely, but that’s the point, right? He laughs, scrapes it off, eats what’s left from his palm, lets Baekhyun delicately dab whipped cream on the end of his nose.  
 

They finish the remains of their perfect piece, just sticky crumbs and strawberries, spoons instead of fingers, suddenly civilised. Baekhyun seems giddy, jostling against Kyungsoo’s shoulder, plucking at his clothes, picking peaches off the top of the cake and eating them noisily, smacking his lips, feeding them to Kyungsoo. He jumps away when their tiny plate is clean, skips to the living room, the windows, drapes a net curtain over his face and hair, holds out a hand, shakes it until Kyungsoo follows him and takes it.  
  


“Am I pretty?” he asks, voice throaty and low and ridiculous.  
 

“The prettiest bride,” Kyungsoo confirms, pulling him out from under the curtains and into his arms. “You’ll ruin your voice like that.” There is still cream at the corner of his mouth and on his cheek. Kyungsoo kisses him clean and he shrieks and pulls away again.  
 

Kyungsoo keeps him close with a hand, slings one arm around his shoulders and crouches down, tries to scoop him up, his other arm under his knees. But he’s shorter and Baekhyun is heavy and they collapse into the side of the couch instead, Baekhyun falling from Kyungsoo’s arms, hitting the floor with a rush of air and a yelp. He giggles helplessly, tugs at Kyungsoo’s arm until he falls down next to him, until they’re both sitting on the floor, leaning against the back of the couch.  
 

“You haven’t eaten enough cake, there’s a lot of egg whites in it, to make you light and fluffy,” says Kyungsoo, pulling Baekhyun’s hand into his lap, linking their fingers. “We’ll eat more and then I’ll try again.”  
 

“We live together, you don’t need to carry me over the threshold,” Baekhyun sighs, rests his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “The cake was good. I feel married.”  
 

Kyungsoo’s heart stutters, skips, he takes a deeper breath than he should need. They’ve been together for three years and he still can’t understand it. Three years and whenever he wakes up before Baekhyun, which is always, he looks at his eyelashes, even with sticky sleep-filled edges, and his mouth, even with drool at the corner, and he wonders how it happened. It had seemed so insubstantial at the time, their meeting. He’d been on the train and a boy with eyes like sunshine had asked him for the time.  
 

“You don't have a phone?” Kyungsoo had been dubious, because of course he had.  
 

“It's dead,” Baekhyun had pouted, because of course he had. “I think I'm late, I think I'm definitely late.”  
 

“It's just after midday. What are you late for?”  
 

He can't remember why he’d asked, something about the sunlight, the flashing grey and white and green through the windows, the empty seats between them. He remembers being tired, lonely maybe, lonely enough that he'd said anything at all. Lonely enough that he'd agreed when Baekhyun had told him his name and suggested they get something to eat together, he’d missed whatever it was he was going to anyway. Lonely enough that he hadn't been mad when Baekhyun had admitted his phone wasn't dead at all, just kind of flattered, just kind of charmed.  
 

“I feel married too,” he says, pulling Baekhyun closer.  
 

“I should have a garter, right? For you to take off,” Baekhyun wrinkles his nose, “or you should have one.”  
 

“I don't... I don't know that tradition,” he smiles, presses his lips to Baekhyun's jaw, his pulse, smiles wider when he shivers.  
 

“I'll teach you some time,” says Baekhyun, grinning wickedly. “But right now, cake is enough.”  
 

They spend the afternoon wrapped up together, eating cake and then giving up when the sugar gets too much and ordering real food. Baekhyun pulls Kyungsoo around the room, a clumsily stepped first dance. Kyungsoo takes of Baekhyun’s clothes. He can't remember why he'd thought he would laugh, why he'd been worried at all, even for a moment. Cake is silly, silly as a wedding maybe, and it's possible they'll still have the party, vows in front of their friends, Baekhyun's family, some of Kyungsoo's, promises and rings and wooden ducks, but maybe they won't have any of it. Maybe cake is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> this is for my daughter [zannen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/zannen/) who has the same birthday as exo! happy birthday best kids! say hello [on tumblr](http://tabeorin.tumblr.com/) if you want, thank you for reading!


End file.
